BEARING gifts, they traveled from within and outside Metro Manila to wish a jailed United States soldier well.

From as far away as Olongapo City, Pampanga and Cavite to as near as Quezon City, supporters of Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith began arriving at the Makati City Jail yesterday afternoon to offer gifts, letters and books to the Marine, convicted for raping a Filipino woman last year.

Delivering on their promised holiday celebration for Smith, members of the Justice for Dan Smith group also lit 23 candles for the soldier, representing each day that Smith has been incarcerated in the local jail.

"He is away from his family, his country, and he is pitiful so we have to help him. I am also a mother with children around his age, and it somehow feels painful for me too. I just want to know the truth," said Ligaya Tauro, 52, a wife of a Philippine Air Force colonel who came all the way from Sangley Point in Cavite.

Among the six women was Frelyn Smith, the 23-year-old wife of a retired US soldier based in the Philippines.

"He [her husband] wanted me to visit him [Daniel Smith] and give him books and a letter from him. He couldn't come here himself because he would only get emotional... He would cry whenever he sees him [on television]," said Frelyn.

She said her husband, Raymond John Smith, 63, believed Daniel John Smith was a relative. Her husband is from Chicago, Illinois, while Daniel Smith is from St. Louis, Missouri.

Aside from a food pack, Frelyn gave the detained soldier books on the military and politics.

"We are growing in numbers now. We have been receiving lots of e-mails from mothers, not just from teenagers, so nobody could claim that we are supporting him just because he is good-looking," said the group's organizer, Grace Santos.

"They would say we are being funded by the US Embassy, but how can that be when we don't even have a banner?" said Santos, apparently in reaction to statements from the camp of the rape victim, "Nicole."